Notes From All Over – Comments

47 comments for “Notes From All Over – Comments”

1. Bybee served in Punta Arenas? Interesting. Missions to Southern Chile produce real blowhards and nutjobs.

2. (Rechecks own mission call. Oh, right…)

3. What I found particuarly interesting is the timing. He is on his mission six weeks when a dictator takes power. I wonder how that might have influenced how he thinks.

4. #5 — Sadly, my family was one of those who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars with the first-class criminal, Shawn Merriman. He always pitched to his investors that he was a bishop in the LDS Church to add to his credibility… so sad. I was glad to hear he got excommunicated 3 weeks ago. What a jerk.

5. On the flip side, I saw the end of Pinochecito, the electoral campaign generated the best electoral slogan I’ve ever seen: “No mas bla bla, vote por Fra Fra”, in favor of “Fra-Fra” Errazurriz. I would have voted for him…

   I don’t think it’s automatic that serving in Pinochet’s Chile informed his viewpoints. Especially in the South, Allende would have been a *very* sympathetic figure, unless Bybee served in one of the Carabineros training outposts. By tn the late 80s/early 90s, Mormon affection for Pinochet in Southern Chile would have ran about 15%. Allende was a sympathetic figure.

6. #1 I lived on the coast of British Columbia, Canada, for most of my life, where the slopes of the Cascade Mountains rise to more than 7,000 feet over our heads. I’ve watched the snow line steadily climb those slopes all my life.

   Now I live in China, where the northern part of the country is turning into a desert and the most important part of your food storage is water.

   I don’t need to click onto anybody’s website to find out whether global warming is a real and urgent problem. Whether I’m in Canada or China, I just look out my back door and see rock where there used to be snow, brown where the used to be green.

7. Pinochet’s takeover of Chile was a real blessing to Chile. It only worked because a free America was able to put the brakes on Pinochet’s excesses. I know missionaries who were there. The Allende government was a serious threat to the church.

8. Aloysiusmiller, I suspect you are making outrageous statements to provoke an argument. I don’t see much evidence for calling Pinochet a “blessing to Chile.”

   If nothing else, the families of the tens of thousands who disappeared (many rounded up in soccer stadiums where they were shot to death) would have a hard time calling Pinochet a blessing.

   I don’t think you can provide sufficient evidence to justify your characterizations that Pinochet was a blessing, that “America” was able to put breaks on the Pinochet regime, or that the Allende government was a serious threat to the church.

   I don’t claim that the Allende government would have been good for Chile, but I suspect it would have lasted for just a few years and have been voted out of office. Wouldn’t that have been better than 30 years of a dictatorship?

9. Like Castro’s government lasted for a few years and was voted out of office?

10. did you guys catch the video of President Buckner collapsing on Glenn Beck’s show? That’s my stake president. Nice guy. No clue what he is doing on Beck’s show though.

11. Dan, I put it in the sidebar (Notes From All Over).

    I can’t wait to talk to Pres. Buckner about it. “Don’t worry, Pres. Glen Beck has that effect on me too!”

12. I’m sure he’s gonna get a lot of the members here in Manhattan asking him about it. Maybe he should send out a note saying he’s okay, and that should you go in for a temple recommend interview, you don’t need to ask anymore about it. :)

13. Aloysiusmiller (9), you are forgetting that Castro took over in a military effort, not by election. Allende was elected.

    I admit that I don’t know a lot about Allende, but I do know that the history of communist governments coming into power is mixed. Not every communist government is authoritarian.

    To give examples I know about:
    * In Portugal the communists took over in 1974 in a military coup (throwing out a Fascist government). They were voted out of office.
    *In Brazil the military stepped in to throw out a left-wing government, and the results were disastrous economically (leading to hyperinflation as the military mismanaged the economy), setting Brazil back at least 30 years. But despite the obvious failure, the military didn’t leave power for decades.

    Its pretty clear that whether a government keeps control too long depends more on whether that government is authoritarian in nature than on whether it is communist or not.

    BTW, if you bother to read about Allende, you soon discover that he was NOT a communist. And, at least in the KGB’s view, he seemed unwilling to use force to secure his administration — hardly authoritarian. Admittedly, he was a disaster economically. But I can’t see how that justifies a coup, or Pinochet maintaining power for 40 years.

    If you are going to continue to argue in favor of Pinochet, I think you will need to bring a lot more evidence and stop simply making unsupported statements and those that aren’t relevant, like #9.

14. On #33, where was this moderate Romney during the campaign last year? His hard shift to the right cost him dearly. He should have stayed the moderate. It suits him better.

15. Dan, if you read the article, you will see that this is about Romney’s recent speeches, including his comments about the Obama administration.

16. Kent Larsen

    Which book did you read that in? Scholars offer citations. Allende was very much an authoritarian socialist and was well on his way to the classical impoverish for control strategy of all such authoritarians-socialists.

    Communist dictatorships only fail when there is a bulwark of freedom pressing against them.

    Pinochet’s tactics were brutal– a rough man at work when the rest of us were safe a’bed. But he was up against a horrible subversion. It didn’t make him pretty but I can count the number of members of the Church in Cuba and compare and contrast it with the number in Cuba.

    Thanks goodness for rough men and thank goodness for America that knew when and how to touch the brakes.

17. Here is my book:

    http://www.policyofliberty.net/HPdA/RobertsAraujo.html

    Where’s yours?

18. I did put a citation in my comment. I started with the wikipedia article, which, while not as dependable as a vetted encyclopedia, is at least a bit more thorough than the reference you gave, although you aren’t clear about whether you read the page you referenced, or the actual book they advertised there.

    To be honest, the work you reference seems so apologetic for Pinochet, who was, by all accounts, a ruthless dictator, that its hard to imagine giving it any credence.

    Let me make this clear. I am NOT an apologist for Allende. I doubt that I would have voted for him in 1970, had I been a voting Chilean citizen at that time. Clearly by 1973 he had caused economic chaos in the nation and deserved to be removed from office using legal means.

    It is interesting that the advertisement for the book you mention concentrates on the economic problems Allende caused, but fails to explain exactly what Allende did that justifies its claim that he launched a “palace coup against Chile’s longstanding democracy.”

    But Allende’s failures do not justify a military coup. And, more than anything, they don’t justify Pinochet’s subsequent 40-year control over the country.

    And, don’t believe I haven’t noticed that you continue to try to make this about Allende, as if his failures somehow justify Pinochet’s tyranny. How can you justify Pinochet’s 40-year control? How can you justify his repression and the tens of thousands civilians, most not even government employees, murdered in his coup? 40,000 (including two US Citizens) were killed in the National Stadium of Chile alone!!!

    If you are going to praise Pinochet, you have to justify that somehow. How do you justify 130,000 people killed or “disappeared?”

19. Kent,

    Someone like Aloysiusmiller justifies that action as Henry Kissinger did:

    “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

    130,000 dead justifies. Heck, millions dead justifies. As long as the people don’t choose for themselves communism, it doesn’t matter how many die.

20. Dan, I see your point. The ends justify the means.

    Except when used by diety, I can’t see the morality of this argument.

21. So where did you pull 130,000 out of? Pinochet was brutal but no where near as brutal as Castro and there was nothing close to 130,000 dead as a result of his takeover.

    As dictatorships go this one was quite benign.

    I thumb my nose at anyone who thinks that Allende should have been left in power.

22. “I thumb my nose at anyone who thinks that Allende should have been left in power. . . . I blow my nose in your general direction. . . ”

    You win. I’m wounded.

23. It’s the toxic snot that did it, Kent.

24. Hi Ardis….

25. Kent,

    Who are you quoting? The same person Dan quoted at “130,000 dead”?

    It is sort of juvenile to invent quotes, don’t you think? Besides it got Ardis going and you know what comes next. She is going to slay me with her wit.

26. Spencer W. Kimball as President of the Church called Pinochet one of the great leaders of Latin America.

    http://www.sltrib.com/lds/ci_3661420

    I am not at all embarrassed to agree with President Kimball.

27. aloysiusmiller,

    I pulled that quote out of my buttocks. The number dead is irrelevant, isn’t that right? It doesn’t matter how many died, as long as communism was defeated. That’s the point of Americans supporting Pinochet. He wasn’t communist. He was our dictator. It doesn’t matter how many he killed. Oh I’m sure that if the number got too high (say 1,000,000), we might start to worry. But just a few hundred thousand? Eh, small potatoes. Besides, they’re hispanics, in our backyard, and there’s no oil there.

    Spencer W. Kimball as President of the Church called Pinochet one of the great leaders of Latin America.

    Thank you for proving the point. As long as he was fighting communism, his repression of his people did not matter. It was a sad time in our history.

28. No surprise on your quote.

    It was a courageous time in our history. President Kimball spoke prophetically.

29. let me clarify, Henry Kissinger’s quote was not out of my buttocks. The number, the 130,000 was. Because numbers are irrelevant.

    And no, it was not a courageous time in our history. It was a lamentable time. We were driven by fear, not courage.

30. I understood you the first time — no need for facts.

    President Kimball was a bold and courageous man.

31. Yes, he was. He spoke out against our constant dependency on the arm of flesh to defend ourselves. But he also made mistakes. Thinking Pinochet was great was one of those mistakes.

32. Pinochet was certainly dumb and ignorant of those Americans who used him. From the article you linked, aloysius:

    The Pinochet regime responded to this support by calling the Latter-day Saints “true Christians who stayed clear of politics,” Jara says, and recognizing the church’s contribution to the “spiritual and social well-being of the nation.”

    What a dolt! Latter Day Saints “stayed clear of politics?” Heh…

33. Bold courage Dan. It was bold courage. Pinochet was a rough and brutal but great man who stanched a horrible evil. Kimball was prophetic for recognizing this.

    But I guess you mark yourself when you condemn Pinochet because he liked Mormons.

34. Aloysiusmiller, the number of dead figure comes from the wikipedia article on the coup.

    And, if you don’t recognize the quote, you won’t get the joke.

    But, at the risk of prolonging a discussion that has gone way beyond the entertaining, you still are dodging the question. If Pinochet was so good, how do you justify the thousands of deaths and his 40-year hold on power in Chile?

35. Kimball was many things, but he was not prophetic in stating his belief that Pinochet was a great Latin American leader. Prophecy has nothing to do with it. Anyways, Pinochet got what was coming to him.

    I do wonder why Mormons think they need to resort to violence to enable the Gospel to be taught to people. There is no scriptural evidence of needing violence to create an opening to spread the gospel. The Israelites never attempted to convert others through violence or non-violence. They felt their religion needed to be exclusive. Christianity under Peter and Paul never used violence, or preached that violence would open the doors to the gospel. In the Book of Mormon, the prophets never advocated that violence would lead people to the gospel. Ammon and his brothers went over to the Lamanites and preached the gospel without violence. They did it with the power of God with them though. Yes, Ammon sliced off the arms of the marauders who kept stealing the king’s sheep, and killed the leader, but that violence was not what opened the door for the gospel. It was Ammon’s dogged duty as the King’s servant that led the King to ponder on who Ammon was. The constant warring in the second half of the Book of Alma did not lead to openings in the Lamanites. What did, was that both the Lamanites and the Nephites opened themselves up to each other (which they should have done earlier). When relations got better between the two sides, that’s when the Gospel spread to the Lamanites.

    This whole argument that the sword opens doors is a modern one, and one ought to question the relation between religion and politics. Does the person making this argument make it because of politics? Do they do it to justify that violent action? I mean, how else would a religious person who believes in Christ, who believes we should love our enemy, justify an aggressive action against a country like Iraq (who did not attack us first)? The best way to justify that in one’s own heart is to say, “Iraq is a Muslim country. Mormons are not allowed there. Maybe if we shake things up a bit, force that oppressive government out, we might be able to create a new government that will allow other religions in, including Mormonism. Thus the action to force Iraq to change is a good one in the long run, no matter how many Iraqis we happen to kill.”

    No matter what happens, whether supporting a dictator in Chile, or the violent overthrow of the dictator of Iraq and forcing our governmental style on Iraq, there is one thing constant: the value of the life of the Iraqi, or the Chilean will always be less than the value of the American life. Even though God himself, according to scripture, values all life equally, loves his children equally, we don’t, and never will. A Chilean dying is not like an American dying. If we truly value lives equally, as God does, we would not be going around killing others so easily. But we don’t, so we do. It’s in our American nature. And I think we are in the wrong the more we do such things. No matter how many prophets think dictators are “great.”

36. Dan, Your arguments look like the come from the same place you get your numbers. You need some serious Bible study on how the Israelites established themselves in Israel after the Exodus. Try 1 Samuel 15 as a start.

    Fighting isn’t really Christian either but we fought Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini and we won and it was good. The allies firebombed Dresden and we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki and we saved lives while taking many including women and children. It is pretty ugly but not nearly so ugly as having your own faith and family destroyed by the forces of evil.

    The issues in Chile have a degree more ambiguity but the ambiguity is caused by the forces of evil. Subversion is now the preferred strategy of Satan and subversion is harder to fight. I thank God for men like Pinochet who can see it and engage it and fight it. I thank God that there was a free America that prevented Pinochet from getting carried away while allowing him to do that which was necessary.

    How many did he kill? Probably 3200. That seems about right and necessary. How many did he chasten? Many more.

    Were there innocents killed? Yes just as there are in any war.

37. What is this 40 year hold on power? Where did this number come from Kent? He took over in a coup in 1973 and he gave up the presidency in 1990 as a result of elections that were held in 1988. That doesn’t compute to 40 years or are you as math challenged and sourced as Dan?

38. alosyius,

    You need some serious Bible study on how the Israelites established themselves in Israel after the Exodus. Try 1 Samuel 15 as a start.

    I’m sorry, but were the Israelites trying to expand their numbers outside Israelite blood during that time, or were they trying to carve out a “place of their own?” The argument here is how proselytizing increases due to the sword. Since the Israelites were not a proselytizing nation, you don’t have a point here.

    It is pretty ugly but not nearly so ugly as having your own faith and family destroyed by the forces of evil.

    Right, but that had nothing to do with expanding religion. That’s the argument here, where a war, like the one in Iraq, could possibly open the doors to Mormonism in Iraq. The Church at the time did not make such arguments about Germany (because of course the church was already in Germany before WWII).

    The issues in Chile have a degree more ambiguity but the ambiguity is caused by the forces of evil. Subversion is now the preferred strategy of Satan and subversion is harder to fight

    Ah, because we didn’t use subversive means to help Pinochet in power. We were out in the open about it…

    I thank God for men like Pinochet who can see it and engage it and fight it.

    Because he wasn’t subversive…

    I thank God that there was a free America that prevented Pinochet from getting carried away while allowing him to do that which was necessary.

    Kill people who didn’t agree with America. Yeah, nice morals we have.

    Were there innocents killed? Yes just as there are in any war.

    But it wasn’t a war. These deaths were in “peace time.” These deaths were of people who publicly disagreed with Pinochet and with America. I’m glad Chile is where it is now, but the ends do not justify the means. Those who used questionable and immoral acts to get to those ends ought to be punished (as Pinochet rightfully was).

39. These were deaths of men who were plotting to take control of Chile and subvert the rights of millions. They deserved what they got. I am very sorry that they were evil and I am very happy that they were prevented from wreaking their evil on Chile.

    Pinochet good! Allende bad!

40. Plotting to take control of Chile and subverting the rights of millions…if that is what makes a person evil, then, well, I think you know where I’m going with this…

41. Well yes. Chile is today a free country thanks to Pinochet.

    By contrast Cuba is in its 50th year of revolution, poverty and suppression of rights. I have no doubt that Chile would have been there as well had it not been for Pinochet.

    God bless the memory of Augusto Pinochet. May he someday receive all his blessings.

42. Aloysiusmiller (37), he gave up the presidency in 1990 (17 years after the coup), but it was 25 years before he stepped down as head of the military, and he was a Senator for life, protected from prosecution in Chile, until his death in 2006. During this time he amassed a $28 million fortune.

    Yah, he was such a good guy it took 33 years to get rid of him — by waiting for him to die.

43. Aloysiusmiller (39), I think you are forgetting that the coup killed only about 40 people. The rest of the deaths (including 2 US Citizens) occurred in the ensuing months as Pinochet attempted to wipe out any serious opposition to his regime. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973).

    He already had power, but still had to kill thousands.

    You want to tell the families of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, the journalists that Pinochet had killed, that they were fomenting revolution in Chile? (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Horman)

44. Yes as a Senator Life he had 300 indictments filed against him. He actually was forced by civil unrest to relinquish the presidency. Some dictator. He should have been taking Castro lessons. Allende was.

    But I forgive you Kent for overstating your case. It is a leftist tendency and if I am not mistaken you are an academic which means you have leftist leanings by default.

45. Alyosiusmiller (44), I’m hardly a leftist. FWIW, I’m a lifelong registered republican.

    I just get heavily annoyed at the knee-jerk, illogical, Rush Limbaugh-style conservative junk from those like you who are turning the Republican party into something that normal people can’t stomach. These same Republicans want to kick moderates like myself out of the party to turn it into a warped ideological weapon they want to use to beat up anyone who disagrees with them.

    Please, if you are going to be conservative, at least learn the rationale behind your positions and learn enough of what others think so that you can avoid looking like a wacko like Limbaugh.

46. aloysius,

    Well yes. Chile is today a free country thanks to Pinochet

    Really? Thanks to Pinochet? You mean people were free to think what they wanted when he ruled Chile? Who really freed the Chileans, aloysius? It wasn’t Pinochet. It was whoever came after Pinochet. That’s who we should thank that Chile is free today.

    By contrast Cuba is in its 50th year of revolution, poverty and suppression of rights.

    Um, Cuba is where it is because of our economic sanctions. We fed the Castro love. He LOVED the fact that we paid so much attention to him. Silly, silly silly.

47. Calling Limbaugh a wacko labels you adequately for me.

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